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In terms of culture, the Japanese immigration to Brazil is one of the most interesting issues when considering Latin-American groups and of course the organizations created by Japanese population, which allowed them in the first years in Brazil to organize and boost their productive activities like agriculture but then institutions were created to strengthen this amazing cultural identity which now is mixed with the national identity any Brazilian would have. When you go to Liberdade, the Japanese neighborhood in the city of Sao Paulo and you go to the popular Brazilian “feira” there, sometimes is hard to believe you are in Brazil. It is only when you listen to some Japanese speaking Portuguese (many don’t speak) or when you look ads in Portuguese that you remember you are not in Japan. And it is not strange considering that roughly 1.2 million Japanese and Japanese descendants live in Brazil nowadays.
The history of Japanese immigration to Brazil started before 1908 when the first ship, Kasato Maru, arrived in the port of Santos with 781 people. This was the first result of years of discussions, negotiations and conflicts between Brazil and Japan. Studying the socio-political and economic situation of both countries in nineteenth century it is possible to conclude that what allowed the immigration of Japanese people to Brazil was the critical economic situations both countries had and what boosted even more this migration was the profitable business it was in that times. Brazilian government and migration agencies wanted Japanese people basically to supply the lack of labor force when slavery was abolished in the coffee cultivations. Coffee was described to Japanese as "the tree that provides gold” and productivity of the plants would be such that the branches would arched with the weight of fruits so it was just needed to harvest them easily enough with the hands. This was not the reality, but Japanese immigrants only realize of this when established in Brazil.
Japanese population contributed in many areas in the Brazilian society like culture, education, sports, science and technology, health, and economy. Japanese immigration allowed close relations between both countries which allowed many initiatives and projects of economic development from the Japanese government and institutions like banks to help their largest population outside Japan could reach economic growth and prosperity which at the same time helped the Brazilian economy through foreign direct investments.
One of the most amazing contributions is the area of agriculture because it was so great and so important that Japanese immigrants and their descendants are still seen and admired in the country as the people who revolutionized the industry. They came also to be recognized and respected by the development they gave to agriculture by introducing new techniques and equipment that increased production and product quality. They were the first, for instance, to use fertilizers and pesticides in farming. They were pioneers in the cooperative movement founding the Cooperativa Agrícola de Cotia in 1927 and Cooperativa de Juquerí in 1929, subsequently Cooperativa Central Agrícola Sul-Brasil. In the late 70’s, one in ten farmers in the state of São Paulo was Japanese or as they are known, Nikkei. They were responsible for 35% of food produced in the state and supplied 70% of Ceagesp, the largest warehouse of vegetables, fruits, fish and flowers in Latin America.
The contribution to agricultural development in Brazil is so important that some products were used to designate the source of its growers. Zucchini and Japanese eggplant are examples of it. This effort of immigrants working in the field created a revolution in the Brazilian dining table – the daily menu of population, which was composed almost exclusively of rice, beans, meat and pasta, also included vegetables, expanding the food brought by other migratory flows.
The next pictures show how amazing and interesting is being in Liberdade.
REFERENCES
Clavijo, D, Rangel, N & Arroyave, D. (2010). The Nikkeis and the agricultural development in Brazil. Universidad EAFIT.
Japan International Agency – JICA (2003). Os Nikkeis e a Sociedade Brasileira nos próximos 20 anos. São Paulo, Brazil.
O bairro da Liberdade e o Centenário da Imigração Japonesa no Brasil. Retrieved from: http://static.blogo.it/viajandaun/liberdade.jpg
Liberdade in Sao Paulo. Retrieved from: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Liberdade_in_Sao_Paulo_002.JPG
Guiozão e tempulá. Retrieved from: http://brauncafe.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/lei-230x306.jpg
What can different organizations and the private sector do to avoid the abuse of minorities?
1. Spread information about the case over the country where the abuse is made and in this way people will know it which would strengthen support, resources and means to avoid the abuse.
2. Study the specific minority group in order to understand their culture and the roots of that abuse in an objective manner. The more the knowledge the more effective will be to manage the situation through strategies to solve the problem.
3. After a profound understanding of culture of the minority, an organization could start negotiation processes with government or the institution responsible for the abuse.
4. One of the most important action to be taken is to join efforts to return the minority groups to their living conditions and standards they had. Normally this is what minorities abused want, but if a dialogue was established after studying culture of the minority it would be possible to know how they would feel protected.
5. Going to international organizations or legal entities that have great influence and can enforce international law against the abuse of minorities.
6. Coordinate a plan to evaluate the results of the actions made to avoid abuse. In this sense, it is possible to know how effectively they were and if in reality abusing is over.
This was an activity based on the movie Rabbit-Proof Fence in the Australia’s module.
The BOBs is the international awards for Weblogs, podcasts and video blogs. Since the beginning, the BOBs have grown with each edition and now are held in 11 languages. There are two ways to be awarded for BOBs. The winners of the judges are appointed by decision of an international jury of leading figures in the global blogosphere, while the audience award winners are selected through online voting.
After reviewing this interesting website I discovered Coluna Zero, a blog created in Brazil to discuss environmental issues in an informal manner. As the author says, it contains information and opinions on the environment, environmental preservation and conscious consumption. Moreover, when spare time and money, a publicist and some environmental engineers gather to discover and record videos of the most fascinating and hidden places of Brazil, exploring in a very informal and relaxed the natural beauties of each place, people and places where they have fun.
I consider this issue quite important and for us this blog could be a learning experience to start exploring our rich diversity and provide information about the most beautiful places in Colombia with an environmental responsible approach in order to promote ecotourism and change the international image we have but which now is every day moving away from reality.
References
The BOBs
Coluna Zero
Here is an issue not regularly commented and I would say less in the academic environment, basically because students, for instance, do not have to bear with this since a professional life is just beginning. But another reason could be the decreasing presence of unions in Western Europe and Latin America explained in the different sources used for this article. The idea of this text is to explore the current situation of trade unions and their challenges since European integration, then, expose an interesting research about the role of trade unions in Colombia in terms of wages distribution.
“Trade union membership has fallen in Europe over the last 30 years” (ETUC, 2008). This drop is explained due to the decline in the sectors where unionism was more popular, these are heavy industries like mining and steel making. But cultural reasons are present too; young people, migrants and private sector employees are less inclined to join a union.
An event that affected critically unionism in many eastern European states was the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, when that movement collapsed at an even more dramatic rate. In Poland, 14% level of unionization is in contrast to that of the Soviet-controlled era, when almost all workplaces were unionized. Most of those who remain trade union members in Poland work for former state-owned companies. In just 8 out of the 27 member states of the European Union employed population members of a trade union are more than half. In fact, the EU's four most populated states all have low levels of unionization, with Italy at 30%, the UK 29%, Germany 27% and France at 9% (FedEE, 2010). As a consequence, three out of every four people employed in the EU are not members of a trade union and FedEE estimates that, in the medium term, the average level of unionization across the EU will drop even further - from 26.3% today to fewer than 20% by 2010 ((FedEE, 2010).
Despite this situation many organizations exist and achieved an international level to continue working for improvement of work conditions. The process of integration in the region has changed the setting in which these organizations operate since activities and policies across Europe must be coordinated to defend and bargain for members at a national level. They have to speak with a single voice and collectively at European level to influence the economy and society at large and this challenge is taken up by the European Trade Union Confederation whose objective is “an EU with a strong social dimension that safeguards the wellbeing of all its citizens” (ETUC, 2008). ETUC has 82 National Trade Union Confederations in membership from 36 European countries, as well as 12 European industry federations, making a total of 60 million members, plus observer organizations in Macedonia, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The organization is one of the European social partners and is recognized by the European Union, by the Council of Europe and by EFTA as the only representative cross-sectional trade union organization at European level.
Trade unions have as their main objective improving working conditions for most needed workers through processes of negotiations and bargaining but, are this objective always achieved over the world just because of the presence of unionism?
Laura Cuesta (2005) studied the impact of trade unions in Colombia questioning if there is a wage differential between unionized and non-unionized employees attributable to the unions, what is the magnitude of the differential and which part of the inequality in wages of employees is explained by the unions. This is a quite interesting approach and during this research is explained how in United States the wage differential for workers with lower pay is 30% and for workers with higher earnings is 10%, indicating a positive effect of unions on the distribution of wages. In Colombia also existed a slowdown in the unionization rate in recent decades and it was found that unions account for 4% of labor income inequality between unionized and non-unionized workers. Although the percentage is not very high, it is higher than other variables that have traditionally been associated with wage dispersion, such as gender and household dependency rate. From this research was concluded that in Colombia, as in other Latin American countries, North America and Europe, workers with same characteristics face wage differentials favoring unionized employees but that are professionals who receive higher wages and this means that in Colombia, unlike the findings for other regions, trade unions contribute to worsening income distribution. The explanation of this thesis is that the highest rate of unionization in Colombia is seen among professional workers and, paradoxically, the lowest among workers presents operators. This means that, against the evidence from other countries, unions in Colombia increased wage dispersion among employees, because those who benefit from collective agreements already have a differential in favor, by the fact of being qualified.
This conclusions show the difference in social organization of Europe and Colombia that implies different roles and contexts for labor unions in each region. Here it would be interesting to do further study in cultural factors that determined, for instance, the paradox in the social organization of Colombian trade unions.
References
European Trade Union Confederation. (2008). European trade unionism. Retrieved from: http://www.etuc.org/r/1138
Federetion of European Employers. (2010). Trade unions across Europe. Retrieved from: http://www.fedee.com/tradeunions.html
Cuesta, L. (2005). Impact of unions in Colombia: Higher wages and more inequality? Desarrollo y Sociedad. Retrieved from: http://economia.uniandes.edu.co/investigaciones_y_publicaciones/CEDE/Publicaciones/Revista_Desarrollo_y_Sociedad/Ediciones/revista_desarrollo_y_sociedad_no_56/impacto_de_los_sindicatos_en_colombia_mayores_salarios_y_mas_desigualdad
This issue results quite interesting because we can realize how culture can influence a huge financial activity in the world that we would believe it is totally standardized in all the countries. But when we discover that in Islamic economies is prohibited the using of interest rates to obtain returns on capital (which for us, westerns, is just natural) it is worth understanding this situation. So, how can a bank operating in Islamic countries obtain its main source of income which is changing intermediation margins?
In Islam, interest is prohibited because the interest in a loan is considered rise of capital without any effort and a false creation of value, so the real increase of income should result from investment, labor and other activities. Some arguments supporting this prohibition in Islam is that interest rates have no moral foundation, that abstinence from consumption is not a justification of returns and that there is no risk to justify the increase of payment for capital lending if the loan is guaranteed.
The really foundation of this concept is the relation between creditor and debtor which is redefined in Islam with the provider of funds becoming a partner in the objective of the loan which generally would be a project, thus assuming the risk activity with the party receiving the loan which generally would be an entrepreneur and shares profit at a pre-agreed portion, not a fixed return as the banking system we know. In this case the creation of incremental wealth justifies the sharing of profit between the lender and borrower of money; this is the profit and loss sharing (PLS) principle. This principle is based on the Koran, which allow trade but not interests nor usury mainly because Islam looks for an equitable distribution of profits between investors and entrepreneurs so it sees unjust to guarantee a return on capital or loan in a situation in which the lender does not make any effort. Here is where the profit and loss sharing (PLS) principle appears as a ruling system not just in banks but in all Islamic economic institutions.
In business operations of Islamic banks there are commissions or fixed-charges depending on services and business operations so they raise funds by applying an interest-free current account by a profit sharing basis.
As Bellalah and Ellouz (2004) explain:
The special principle of Islamic banks is that investors share in bank’s profits and losses rather than obtain a fixed interest as in the western system. The holders participate in the outcomes of banks at a profit or loss sharing ratio which depends on the short or long term basis. (p.536)
In the case of long term deposits they have a higher profit and lose sharing ratio due to their greater risk and to obtain a profit share, depositors must keep their funds until the end of the contracted period. Finally funds can be used in profitable issues like real investments in trade or on loans on a profit sharing basis and in non-profitable issues like holdings of cash reserves and the provision of interest-free loans to customers and entrepreneurs.
This is a report that explains briefly what are the main concepts in islamic banking system, and at the same time it gives an insight of the financial development in the region.
References:
Mondher Bellalah, & Siwar Ellouz. (2004). Islamic Finance, Interest Rates and Islamic Banking : A Survey of the Literature. Finance India: SPECIAL ISSUE, 18, 533-546. Retrieved April 29, 2010, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 676725991).
WealthCity. (2009). Islamic Banking & Finance / Shariah Investments – WealthCity [Video file]. Retrieved from:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeQkY7DoY9U
